'Steadfast in the teaching of the church': Bishop defends gay teacher's firing

Tuesday

Apr 30, 2013 at 12:01 AMMay 1, 2013 at 8:08 AM

A responsibility to uphold the integrity of the faith bound officials to fire a gay Catholic-school teacher who listed her partner's name in an obituary, Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell said yesterday. Also yesterday, the teacher - Carla Hale - filed a complaint with the city calling her dismissal from the Clintonville school a flagrant violation of Columbus' anti-discrimination ordinance.

JoAnne Viviano, The Columbus Dispatch

A responsibility to uphold the integrity of the faith bound officials to fire a gay Catholic-school teacher who listed her partner’s name in an obituary, Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell said yesterday.

Also yesterday, the teacher — Carla Hale — filed a complaint with the city calling her dismissal from the Clintonville school a flagrant violation of Columbus’ anti-discrimination ordinance.

Hale, who taught physical education at Bishop Watterson High School, filed the complaint with the Columbus Community Relations Commission under a city code that makes it a misdemeanor for an employer to discriminate based on sexual orientation.

Campbell said earlier in the day that Hale was not fired because of her sexual orientation but because her “quasi-spousal relationship” with another woman violates the church’s moral teaching. He said Hale violated a teacher contract and Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus policy that prohibits immoral behavior and requires employees to follow general church tenets.

In an exclusive interview with The Dispatch, the bishop said diocesan officials “don’t necessarily go looking for things like that,” but Hale’s decision to name her partner in her mother’s obituary made the relationship public and initiated the termination process.

As bishop, he said, he has a “fundamental responsibility” to maintain the Catholic identity of the institutions under his purview.

“We do this in an atmosphere of care, of calm consideration, but yet out of the realization that at particular times we have to make particular decisions,” he said. “And they are difficult sometimes, but they do flow from what we believe, who we are and how we are to live.”

Hale’s attorney, Thomas Tootle, has said he sees no distinction between Hale’s sexual orientation and her relationship status. He argued that neither the teacher contract nor the diocesan policy specifically bound Hale, a Methodist, to abide by church tenets or to practice Catholicism.

“I question whether the bishop’s statement is consistent with their own catechism, especially under these circumstances, where this individual obviously is in a time of grief and then losing their career on top of that,” Tootle said.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls gay people to chastity and refers to homosexual acts as “grave depravity” that close the sex act to the gift of life. It says that “under no circumstances” are homosexual acts to be approved.

It also says that gay people “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity” and that “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

If the Community Relations Commission moves ahead with Hale’s complaint, it likely will take at least four months to determine whether it should be forwarded to the city prosecutor’s office for consideration, said Napoleon Bell II, the executive director of the commission. He said it’s the first complaint filed against a religious organization since he took control of the office in 2005. Bell has said the city law has no exemption for religious organizations.

Hale wants her job back and, along with the city complaint, she is pursuing a grievance through the local Catholic teachers union. Supporters have started a #halestormOhio advocacy group, and more than 100,000 people have signed an online petition seeking her reinstatement.

Campbell said morality clauses such as the one in Hale’s contract have been common in Catholic dioceses for years because of the belief that employees who represent the church or teach in a church organization should respect its moral tenets and other teachings. He said employees are given instruction on the issues and that firing for morals violations is not common but does occur.

The controversy over Hale’s firing has led to threats against the Catholic Church, the diocese and the school. A spokesman said the diocese is paying to have a special-duty Columbus police officer patrol at Watterson during school hours and that police have increased their “drive-by” presence at the campus.

“It can be very intimidating,” Campbell said of the threats. “We are very concerned about that, but we have to remain steadfast in the teaching of the church.”

Campbell also has been criticized for not responding publicly sooner. He said his reticence was partly because of the privacy required by personnel matters and partly because of his desire to respond thoughtfully.

“I have to make certain that what I say is accurate and measured because I don’t want to add to the heat of this,” he said yesterday. “People want bold statements right away, and I have to make sure I understand what the question is, how it can be answered and how to do it in a measured way."